Sunday, August 30, 2009

The State Dept. of Health's Anna Hargreaves, who runs the Diabetes Prevention and Control Program's efforts to promote walking and other physical activity is likely to see her efforts fail if we do not treat pedestrians and cyclists as integral parts of our mobility system. She therefore needs to have a chat with the State Dept. of Transportation's Gary Giron, head of the agency famous for designing wide urban roads with few and dangerous crosswalks (S. St. Francis, Cerillos, Trinity), and rural roads with dangerous shoulders or roads completely lacking in same (NM-4). Such designs don't do much to encourage walking or bicycling and point to the hopeless stovepiping of government agencies working at cross purposes to each other.

I suppose the cynic would say that the NM DoT's designs actually weed out the slow runners and walkers among us who cannot make it across the street, thus encouraging survival of the fittest. That's actually not my comment. It was made at a state Bike-Ped conference a few years ago by one of the Espanola representatives, discussing the two main drags running through his city, which as Federal highways fall under State jurisdiction.

This is what Complete Streets is all about--designing transportation that promotes the public welfare in more ways than by moving cars, e.g., moving people in a way that benefits the greater good, including considerations of health, energy efficiency, intelligent urban planning, and less pollution. Its about time someone explained that to our Dept. of Transportation. And, to some of our parents around here who create massive gridlock at our schools every morning by carting Dick and Jane to class in Old Belchfire.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

THREE YEARS AGO, I was driving in Atlanta early one morning when I saw a body on the road. It was a young female runner. I called 911 and then ran to her. She had a horrendous head injury but still had a heart beat. I started CPR, but her injuries were too severe. She died in my hands. I wrote a column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about what happened to the runner, and a flood of letters came in.Half blamed the runner, saying she should not have been running in the street at that hour. Half blamed the driver, for not paying close enough attention. Not a single writer blamed the road...

A little while ago one of my colleagues at work told me that at about 0845 this morning he saw a cyclist trying to make a properly positioned and legal left turn from Diamond onto Pajarito and was repeatedly harassed by a following white pickup truck operator who was tailing him and repeatedly blasting his truck horn. So the white truck was apparently headed down the Pajarito corridor.

According to the law, that motorist could have been, at minimum, cited for Sec. 38-545, (f) No person shall operate a motor vehicle in such a manner as to harass or endanger the operator of a bicycle.

If this is due to the morning snarl on Diamond, it might also be worth reminding the work force via official Laboratory channels that to minimize construction delays and frayed nerves, (here quoting the Diamond Construction Web site) "...Alternative options (to the multitude of single occupant vehicles clogging the construction zone) include minimizing the number of vehicles on Diamond Drive by riding Atomic City Transit, carpooling, or flexing schedules when possible. "

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Most of the traffic I saw yesterday and my wife saw today in the construction zone quagmire was in single-occupant motor vehicles. Its not likely we will reduce the traffic snafus if everyone out there keeps pretending we don't have a seriously constricted construction zone out there for the near future and modify our habits appropriately.

At minimum, single-occupant vehicle operators ought to put some soothing music on the vehicle CD player and just ride it out. Wal-Mart pays a lot less than most of the jobs at the Laboratory, and as we know, the DOE clearance people don't look kindly on arrests.